UNC-Greensboro gears up for major expansion

UNC-Greensboro is set to begin construction this summer on the most ambitious expansion in its history.

After working with community members and city officials for over a year, UNCG is moving forward on the Glenwood mixed-use village development that will cost in excess of $200 million if fully built out. It is planned to include hundreds of student housing units, retail shops, a 225,000-square-foot recreation center and a university police station.

The development would grow the university’s campus from 210 acres to roughly 260 acres and extend about seven city blocks from Silver Avenue to Aycock Street. It will also touch the southern edge of UNCG’s current campus on Oakland Avenue.

Reade Taylor, the university’s vice chancellor for business affairs, said UNCG expects to have roughly $52 million secured by summer through financing vehicles such as bank loans or bonds. University officials expect to repay the debt through rents and various user fees generated by the completed facilities themselves.

The development will mean plenty of business opportunities for Triad companies vying for contracts in an otherwise gloomy construction market: The first three phases of the Glenwood development alone would represent an investment of more than $200 million.

UNCG expects to hire a construction manager by April or May on the first phase, which includes four student housing buildings that will accommodate 800 upperclassmen at the intersection of Highland Avenue and Lee Street. Those buildings will go up on land owned by Capital Facilities Foundation, the university’s land acquisition affiliate.

The four apartment buildings will front Lee Street and include a total of 25,000 gross square feet of mixed-use space at street level that could house retail shops, restaurants and university offices.

Mike Byers, UNCG’s associate vice chancellor for business affairs, said the hope is to complete construction on those four buildings by August 2012.

Later this year, the university plans to hire a construction manager to build a $10 million university police station in 2012. UNCG will hire another construction manager to build an $8 million “Gateway Connector” tunnel that will run under the railroad corridor and stop just short of Lee Street. Construction should begin in the late fall or early 2012.

The second phase of the project calls for a student housing complex that will open by 2014 or 2015 and accommodate more than 600 students. Construction on the recreation center should also begin during phase two. A third phase calls for a student housing complex holding up to 600 students that should open sometime after 2017.

Additional phases beyond the first three are planned, but moving forward on them will depend on the university’s growth. Currently, UNCG only houses about 30 percent of its roughly 14,500 undergraduates on campus, Byers said. Meanwhile, peer universities house between 40 percent to 50 percent of undergraduates, Byers said.

“We really are about catching up to where we probably should have been already,” Byers said. “We have a long wait list for students who want to live in student housing.”

City officials are supportive of the project, saying it will help to fulfill recommendations and policies for the adopted High Point Road/West Lee Street Corridor Plan by enhancing the area and drawing new investments there.

“There were properties that had not been kept up and had become a magnet for crime and deterioration,” said Mike Kirkman, the city’s interim zoning director. “This will be a good investment that will really kind of enhance the neighborhood and the university.”

But not everyone is happy in the neighborhood.

Brian Higgins, who lives on Haywood Street in Glenwood, characterized the plan as more of a “compromise” between the university and the neighborhood, adding that the recreation center and police station were points of contention for several residents.

On the upside, the project will mean new investment dollars for the neighborhood, which “used to be the wrong side of the tracks,” said Barry Scarbrough, president of the Greater Glenwood Neighborhood Association. “It’s changing into an eclectic, diverse neighborhood.”

Before construction can move forward, UNCG must first work with community members to amend part of the Glenwood Neighborhood plan adopted by the city that overlaps the High Point Road/West Lee Street Corridor Plan. UNCG will have to amend it from single-family to mixed-use residential for lots between Union and Haywood streets, said Kirkman, adding that the property will have to be rezoned as well.

Jeff Sovich, the city’s neighborhood planning coordinator, said UNCG also must acquire more property within the Glenwood neighborhood to complete future phases. University officials declined to comment on how much land they have acquired thus far, but Sovich said the university has purchased roughly 14 acres within the Glenwood community. He said the university would need to buy another 40 acres or so to carry out the entire project.